Galerie Louise Leiris, Paris
Private Collection, Belgium (and sold: Sotheby's, London, June 25, 1996, lot 232)
Galerie Michael Haas, Berlin (acquired at the above sale)
Leonard Hutton Galleries, New York
Jonathan Novak Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
Theo Waddington Fine Art, Boca Raton
Gasiunasen Gallery, Palm Beach
Acquired from the above circa 2006

Paris, Galerie Louise Leiris, 172 Dessins en noir et en couleurs, 1972, no. 51
West Hollywood, Louis Stern Fine Arts, Picasso — Face to Face, 1998

Christian Zervos, Pablo Picasso, œuvres de 1971-1972, vol. XXXIII, Paris, 1978, no. 368, illustrated pl. 129
The Picasso Project, ed., Picasso's Paintings, Watercolors, Drawings and Sculpture. The Final Years, 1970-1973, San Francisco, 2004, no. 72-103, illustrated p. 302

Executed on thick buff colored card. The work is affixed to a linen mat at top corners and center of bottom edge on verso. There is some slight bowing at the top edge and lower left corner, otherwise the work is in excellent condition.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Tête d’homme is a quintessential example of Picasso’s late work, a highly productive and emotionally charged period filled with references to the Old Masters, depictions of models in his studio, and self-referential male subjects. Marie-Laure Bernadac writes about this fruitful time, “In the last twenty years of his life, Picasso literally took painting as his model, his subject, or his example… This theme enables him to illustrate the mechanics of creation through the relationship between the three principal participants, the artist, the model and the canvas, i.e. the subject, the object and the verb, with all the thousand ways in which it can be conjugated. In this hand-to-hand struggle with painting, in this violent endeavor to resolve the eternal conflict between art and life, reality and illusion, it seems as if Picasso has found himself on the other side of the canvas, through the looking-glass, and identified himself with his object” (Late Picasso: Paintings, Drawings, Prints 1953-1972 (exhibition catalogue), Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris & The Tate Gallery, London, 1988, p. 49).

During these years, a major focus of his production was the portraits of men in various costumes, collectively referred to as his Musketeer series. These paintings, which are understood to be representations of Picasso's alter-ego, reveal the artist's attempt to ward off death with a final buꦏrst of creativity. Having gone through so many phases of stylistic and technical experimentation, Picasso now pared down his style in order to paint works in quick, spontaneous brush-strokes. Rather than ponder the details of his human anatomy, he isolated elements of his subject that fascinated and preoccupied him, a☂nd depicted them with a bold, contemporary style and wit. Further, in recasting the iconography of old master painters such as Rembrandt and Velázquez, Picasso is, at the end of his career, consciously aligning himself with the greatest artists of the Western canon.